Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

I’ve done a run through all the text, and before I get into some insights, I want to set some ground rules in case anyone wants to join in. You are absolutely welcome to. If for some reason you’ve made significant progress on an aspect before coming here — that is, you know “spoilers” and are not just playing along — I would prefer any comments be held off.

I have a copy of the text here with comment permission. I’m holding off on a spreadsheet until I have a better idea of what the layout should be (more on that in a moment).

To reckon with Henry! That was never easy. Just beyond the laurels, I turned sharply and there he was, bending over the body of his latest victim. There was blood all about. I called to him sharply and he seemed dazed.

— Page 21

I also want to caution is I’m about to make a guess here that might be gigantic spoiler — it deals with a fundamental aspect of the story. If you want to take your own shot at reading and theorizing first without being tainted you might want to veer away until later.

The modern box set, picture from Ash Digital.

For my readthrough I decided to go backwards, 100 to 1, for no particular reason. This led to a rather intense start, which feels like it might be a genuine ending:

I dimly guess why the old dead so wanted this. I had worked for him, Henry had worked for him. If I could get up, as, believe me, I cannot, I would have a thing to say to her. She lolls over at me gloating, her mouth blood-tinted on the puma freckle of her beauty. Why should I think of Henry at this particular juncture? I have it. Scotland Yard, of course. And little ‘twill matter to one. A sorry thing to be last noticed : the buttonhole has escaped from the buttonholer. He, the reckless old cock, slips down past Woolworth’s and she continues full-sail toward the Kursal, as flush—oh, you wicked woman—as May. The girl is smiling at me. That’s not so good. Here I shake off the bur o’ the world, man’s congregation shun. O beastly woman. You know not how ill’s all here, about my heart ; but I know. Henry, I feel it, is for the first and last time getting out of hand. Good-bye, Henry. He drops awa. . . . .

In terms of surface understanding, “I” the narrator here is “working for” someone and “Henry”, who shows up a great deal in the story (more than any other character, I think) also “works for” the same person. This is followed by some stream-of-consciousness which may or may not be wordplay, and then … some kind of death? “He drops away” being cut off sounds akin to a murder happening, but of who? “Goodbye, Henry” makes it sound like Henry itself, but their earlier “Why should I think of Henry” seems to disabuse that notion.

What really popped out was an immense number of references to Henry — searching yields 56 mentions — including this one, page 91, that I found baffling.

In my youth I had been worried that I bore the same name as Newbolt’s admiral and Shakespeare’s sergeant, and it had irked me when, in my student days, I had been known as the Smiler with the Knife. Afterwards I found it better in practice to capitalise my third letter. The Blue Rocket was still going down next day ; in fact, I knew too much to let it go up. It even seemed to be succeeding. The snowy-banded, dilettante, delicate-handed? At least I was the last. I would not say at last I was the least. I tried to interest him in my little Black Museum, and indeed elicited a frisson with the preserved eyeball of the well-known and respected Cadaver Charlie. The eye in which, just before its fellow was shot out by the Chicago sleuth, he had asked that suave detective if he, the detective, could see any green. It looked, though, as if Henry had been playing about with this exhibit. I would have to take steps.

First off, “Newbolt’s admiral and Shakespeare’s sergeant” are both references to Henry. So on this page, the narrator here seems to be admitting their name is Henry. But what is with capitalizing “my third letter”? This feels like it has to be wordplay, but I’m not sure what it indicates. Even more mysteriously, Henry then is referred to later as someone other than the narrator “It looked, though, as if Henry had been playing about with this exhibit.”

I also quoted another excerpt last time about the narrator being called “Hal”, and there’s this bit from page 94 which seems to hint at another name: “Naturally I looked up. And I tell you I found it awe-inspiring enough to actually see my own name through the window, printed there in great letters for the gaze of all and sundry. With a blush I concentrated again on Henry, and asked myself if his recent activities did or did not constitute the darbs.” And yes, there’s Henry again.

Holistically, I really got the sense of different people with different attitudes. Some people were stern and upper-class; some were not. 60 seemed to outline the pieces of a murder, and are very explicit about calling Henry “my peerless investigator” — like Henry is working for the narrator.

I had sufficient knowledge to realise that I had succeeded. I ordered Charles to spare no expense in confecting that Sundae known as Lover’s Delight for my companion. I believed in letting a man have a bit in. A couple of hours later the parson in the pulpit had, with his collaborator, done the trick. I looked down on what I had accomplished. Death closes all : but something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done. That figurehead beard would plough the pseudo-scientific seas no more, at least. There had been other murders, of course, to-day, and with greater consequence. Francis Ferdinand’s, for instance. But never one that had left a man more dead. I gave the huddle farewell, and forbade Henry, my peerless investigator, to pursue the matter further. I climbed down from the short flight of folding steps upon which I had secured my inevitable heliographic record of success. No more by thee my steps shall be for ever and for ever.

So, here’s my grand theory: there is not only just one narrator. There are, perhaps, six narrators, one for each murder; since the pages all continuously use “I”, it gets disguised who is talking on a particular page. So the first task would be to figure out who the six people are, and sort the pages appropriately. (In fact, perhaps, the narrator is the murderer in all the cases?)

I still have yet to think much of the chronology. You might notice in the last excerpt a reference to Francis Ferdinand’s death (kickstarting WW1), which happened on June 28, 1914. I don’t think this implies the story is happening in 1914 — although it’d add an extra wrinkle if it was — but rather the specific day of June 28 matches with the page. Then, perhaps, each month of the six months of the story neatly encapsulates a narrator and a murder.

(There is, at least mercifully, a few pages where the connection is obvious. There are pairs of pages that all involve poems and breaks mid-poem, but the beginnings and ending of the poems are mixed up. The actual list is: 12->50, 23->87, 49->13, 86->24, 92->42, 41->93. So we have at least six pairs linked up.)

I probably next need to give the whole thing another read, with the notion of mind of separating pages into narrator-characters. This supposition may be entirely false. Certainly the multitude of Henrys is disturbing. The page where the character says he is Henry but also talks about one: maybe there’s more than one Henry, just with different last names? (I could of course also be solving the puzzle wrong.) Is Henry sometimes used not even for a person but an object? There are too many occurrences for him to just be illusory.